On My Honour As Matchmaker, I'll Admire From A Safe Distance
by midnightsnapdragon
Summary: In which Karkat gives people love advice for a living, but it sort of backfires when the one person he can't refuse comes in to ask for his assistance.


Whatever he had envisioned all those years ago when he first thought about being an amateur matchmaker, it certainly wasn't this.

True, in some respects his dream had been fulfilled; he could now, after all, lecture people about the quadrants as a legitimate pastime, and he even had his own little office above a semipopular café to call his own.

But there were certain downsides.

For one thing, the meager proceeds from his business weren't nearly enough to pay the rent on said office, so he was forced to work long shifts in the café as a barista. His aggressive disinterest in smiling, memorizing drinks and generally Being Pleasant had nearly gotten him fired half a dozen times at last count. For another, his lovelorn clients hardly ever listened to him, even though he had tremendous experience in watching trashy romance movies and kept an indexed list of clichés (which ought to have made him an expert by anybody's standards).

All that might have been ignored if it weren't for the premises. His office was cramped, hardly bigger than ye olde janitor's broom closet, plastered from floor to ceiling with movie posters and poorly scribbled shipping grids, and almost perpetually occupied by unspeakably stupid twits who wouldn't know true love if it shook them by the hand, introduced itself, and threw them out the fucking window.

People that weren't him, that is. Karkat Vantas, as the undisputed (shut up, Terezi) expert on romance within his group, would know instantly what to do in any given situation, as long as it involved hearts, spades or anything in between.

Unlike some people he could mention.

* * *

"I think I've developed pale feelings for someone."

"Who?"

"A girl," said Kanaya, giving him a cool look, "who shall remain nameless. She's fierce and adventurous, on occasion alarmingly cruel –"

Karkat scowled. "Is this about Vriska? It's Vriska, isn't it."

Kanaya pressed her lips together.

"Yeah, no. Sorry, I'm gonna have to prescribe a steady diet of suppressing this particular crush."

"Karkat, what are you doing here if you're not going to help?"

"I am helping! It's called taking preventive measures. She's a psychopath and a megalomaniac - stay the hell away from her. And you know what, one more thing. This will be like taking anti-love pills. Three times a day, I want you to stand in front of a mirror and say, _I am too good for the spiderbitch."_

"Karkat," she said reprovingly.

"Repeat after me. _I am too good for the spiderbitch."_

Kanaya gave him an exasperated look. "But I'm not –"

"You are," he insisted. "You're eight kinds of too good for her. I wouldn't let her polish your shoes with a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot shoe shine brush. Just say it, please."

She rolled her eyes.

"I am too good for the spiderbitch."

"Thank you," said Karkat. "Dismissed."

* * *

"So, uh, as I understand, you're capable of, like, getting me a girlfriend?"

"No one is capable of getting you a girlfriend," Karkat said flatly. A disheartened Tavros slunk out of the office, his horns leaving a sizeable dent in either side of the door frame. "Next!"

* * *

"Why, hello, Karkat."

He looked up from his desk to see the spiderbitch herself waltzing into his office. His hackles rose immediately, and he took a moment to estimate the distance between them. It was not reassuring. The tiny room seemed to have shrunk until she could quite comfortably launch herself at his throat. "How'd you get in here?"

"The door was open," Vriska said indifferently, swinging down into the chair opposite him as if it were a throne. Karkat looked past her and saw his padlock in pieces on the floor. "You should really upgrade your security. For a high-profile consultant such as yourself, this is just shameful."

He gritted his teeth. "What are you doing here?"

Vriska slung one leg over the arm of the chair and narrowed her eyes at him. "A certain jadeblood girl has been ignoring my messages ever since she paid you a visit. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

Karkat drew himself up to his full height, which wasn't nearly as impressive as he would have liked. "To tell you about it would violate the matchmaker's code of honour."

Vriska guffawed. "What code of honour?"

Karkat pointed. "That one."

She glanced over her shoulder at the black-and-white sign pinned to the wall above the door. Ten rules were printed there with as many _thous_ and _thines_ as troll Shakespeare could ever desire:

 **1\. THOU SHALT REMAIN IMPARTIAL, WITH NO PERSONAL STAKE IN THE AFFAIR OF ANOTHER.**  
 **2\. THOU SHALT NOT PUT THINE FILTHY NOSE WHERE IT IS NOT WANTED.**  
 **3\. THOU SHALT KEEP ALL MATTERS CONFIDENTIAL TO THOU AND THINE CLIENTS.**  
 **4\. THOU SHALT KEEP AT HEART THE BEST INTERESTS OF ALL PARTIES INV–**

Vriska whistled a low note. "Been taking a leaf out of Kankri's book, have you?"

"Don't talk about that sanctimonious windbag to me. I disavow all and any ties I have to him. Now, for the love of all things arachnoid" – he redirected his pointing finger toward the door – "get the hell out of my office."

* * *

"I just don' understand why she would reject me," Eridan groused, slouching as far in the chair as he could without slipping off. "We practically have everythin' in common – we're seadwellers and pure royalty ta boot, and we really care 'bout each other – how can she not see that we're meant ta be together?"

It was taking all of Karkat's self-control not to leap up from his chair and give his client a very loud and comprehensive list of all the reasons why no one, let alone the heiress of the empire, wanted anything to do with him as far as the flushed quadrant went.

"We've bin moirails for three sweeps, but over the last coupla months I started to kinda … notice things." Eridan's cheeks flushed a delicate shade of lilac as he gazed dreamily over Karkat's head. "How she kisses those cuttlefish goodnight. How she looks utterly _ravishin'_ whenever she climbs outta the water."

Still staring stone-faced at the seadweller prince, Karkat tried to focus on Kanaya's numerous reprimands, which stuck in his head weeks after she issued them: _don't be an idiot, he's royal and he pays well, you're just doing your job, it's not your fault everyone else can't see what's right in front of their noses –_

But the more petulant Eridan got, the more tempted Karkat was to laugh in his face, and his self-control wasn't going to last forever.

"So yesterday I thought, no more. I can't take any more a' this pinin'. I gathered up all the courage I had an' told her that I wanted ta break off our palemance for somethin' more reddish, but – but –"

His eyes started to glisten with violet tears. There was a tissue box in Karkat's bottom left drawer, but he didn't really feel the need to make a show of compassion.

"But she turned me down! Usin' _fish puns!"_

Karkat steepled his fingers. "And how did that make you feel?"

Eridan paused, sniffling. "What?"

"I'm trying to be sensitive here. How did it make you _feel_ that she used fish puns to reject you?"

"Invalidated," Eridan said thickly, burying his face in his cape. "Sidelined. Abandoned!"

Karkat's jaw was starting to ache from clenching it.

"I understand completely," he said.

"I knew you would, Kar. Only you get it. Unrequited love is hard! It's hard and nobody –"

"No, no," said Karkat. "You misheard me. I understand that you're a complete twit for throwing away a three-sweep-old moirallegiance that was clearly the best you were ever going to get in _any_ quadrant. Feferi is one hundred per cent right: no one in their right mind would want to hook up with such a clingy tool."

Eridan's tears vanished, almost like magic, to be replaced with a haughty glower. "And _I_ am clearly the best you're ever gonna get where clients are concerned, so I would watch who I disrespected, if I were you. _Lowblood."_

"I'm only going to say this once, so pay attention." Karkat threw down his pen. "Your case is hopeless. Goodbye."

Eridan looked outraged. "But I wasn't finished!"

"What, you have another sob story to tell me? Did Lalonde turn you down again? Or did you miraculously find someone new to pester? I'm pretty sure you've solicited all of us at one point or another. I should start a fucking tally chart. In fact, why not just give me a comprehensive list of every single person you have failed to ask out in the last perigree so I can have the exact measure of your farce of a love life –"

Eridan gave a short, derisive laugh. "Like yours is any better?"

Karkat flushed. "I happen to be too busy _working for a living_ to date, which you know nothing about, not to mention dealing with cretins like you who wouldn't know a heart from a club. Besides, how can I entertain any thought of romance if everyone is so lame they're limping on both legs?"

"Poppycock." Eridan sneered, leaning across the table. "Everyone knows you're ass over teakettle fer that Harley chick, God only knows why – you're just too much of a coward to say anythin'. At least I told the girl I loved how I felt."

Karkat sputtered, but before he could think of a coherent rebuttal, there was a knock on his office door.

 _"What?"_ he bellowed at it.

The door creaked open and a girl with buckteeth and round glasses poked her head inside. "Hi, Karkat, are you – oh, hey, Eridan, what are you doing here?"

"What does it look like?" Eridan said waspishly. "I'm gettin' some fake love advice from an amateur and fuckin' hypocrite –"

Karkat launched himself from his chair so fast that he nearly doubled over on the desk. "Jade!" he blurted, and then cursed himself as she and Eridan both turned to stare at him – she with a frown, he with knowingly upturned eyebrows.

"Sorry," she said slowly, still only halfway through the door. "I didn't know you were busy. I guess I'll come back later –"

"No, no!" Karkat practically yelled, hurrying around the desk. "He was just leaving!"

"Like hell I was – _hey!"_

Karkat had yanked the chair out from under Eridan and was now bodily shoving him toward the door. Jade jumped back into the hallway to avoid collision as Karkat forced Eridan out of the office.

"Take yer lowly hands offa me –"

"No refunds," said Karkat. He grabbed Jade by the wrist, pulled her inside, and slammed the door in Eridan's face.

For a moment, there was silence in the small, cluttered room. Eridan's grumbling was barely audible over his receding footsteps.

Karkat sucked in a breath, but before he could say anything, Jade pulled free of his grasp to glower fiercely at him.

"Well, that was rude!"

He scowled right back, surreptitiously fisting his hand to erase the fizzy tingle. "Don't you feel sorry for that asshole. He gets off on whining about his own problems and looking for pity, rather than getting off his pampered behind and fixing things like a mature, reasonable person."

Jade snorted, following him to the desk as he bent over to gather a few scattered shipping charts. "Mature? _Reasonable?_ Says the guy who didn't speak to Dave for two weeks after you convinced him to watch that tragic Troll Nick Sparks movie and he laughed so hard he cried."

"Look," Karkat said indignantly, slapping the charts onto the desk, "that was a special case, we can't all have the emotional capacity of a teaspoon like Strider and Strider –"

"I think if you took care to get to know either of them, you'll find that they have truly good hearts. People have a lot more depth than you give them credit for, Karkat."

He made a derisive noise in the back of his throat. Jade ignored him. "Besides, mister matchmaker, isn't it your duty to hear everyone out equally and help them as best you can?"

"You're absolutely right. I heard him out and decided that he's not worth my time. End of story."

Satisfied that he'd made his point, Karkat sat in the swirly office chair behind the desk. That was, of course, her cue to take the chair opposite, but Jade made no move to join him. She just looked at him, the frosty look of dislike on her face nothing like the adoring smile he always saw in his imagination.

"And I suppose I'm not worth your time, either, am I?"

Karkat drew back, dismayed. "What? No, that wasn't what I meant. You are worth – I mean, you're welcome to –" She twisted her lips, and he nearly threw the charts into the air again. "I'm just saying that he's a dunce who wouldn't know one end of a science wand from the other. Don't tell me you actually like him as a person?"

What he really meant was, _tell me I have a chance, because I'm probably an even bigger douche on the inside than he is._

"I don't have to like him as a person and neither do you! You can't pick and choose the people who come to you for help. Love is universal! If you're going to deal in it, you have to realize that, and treat everyone like they matter. You have to _empathize."_

"Are you done preaching?" he deadpanned.

Jade glared at him, which would have been cute if Karkat didn't know for a fact that she kept a rifle in her sylladex and could shoot an apple from fifty paces. "Give him another conference."

"No way. I'm done listening to seadwellers whine about their love lives."

"News flash, O Great Love Oracle: if you want to help people with their love lives, you're going to have to listen to them first instead of yelling your head off! When we're done here, you're going to call Eridan, _apologize sincerely,_ and arrange another appointment. And this time, you'll apply all those shitty movies to find a way to make him happier. Got it?"

Karkat leaned back in his chair during this barrage, half indignant at being told how to run his own business, half enthralled by the vision of Jade Harley with her hands on her hips. Come to think of it, her glare was even cuter with the rifle in mind. God help him.

 _"Fine,"_ he muttered, more to regain her good graces than because he thought she was right.

Jade nodded in satisfaction and took the opposite chair. Her eyes were drawn to the elaborate shipping grid pinned to the wall behind him, displaying the full matrix of the relationships in their circle. "Is that all for the business?"

He was aware she was changing the subject for his sake, but his voice still came out sulky. "Yeah."

"You've sure got your work cut out for you."

"You have no fucking idea. There's always some idiot in love with his moirail or waxing ashen for a pair of healthy kismeses – it never. Fucking. Ends. And that's not even counting all the desperate people I get who want me to hook them up with someone who'll probably ditch them after they pay for dinner. Half the time they don't listen to what I say. Honestly, my expertise is wasted on these halfwits ..."

Jade didn't seem to be listening. She looked curiously around the cramped, messy office, taking in the collage of miscellaneous posters and cheesy stylized quotes. She wore only the buttoned skirt and blue atom shirt that was her standard, nothing special, but even so Karkat found himself staring, his mouth suddenly dry.

Thank the stars that he'd never seen Jade in the fabled "three A.M. dress"; from what he'd heard from John, the sight of her _alone_ would turn him to dust where he stood. Or, at least, render him speechless and blushing, two things Karkat did not want to be, ever, for the sake of his own self-respect.

Especially not in front of the oblivious love of his life.

The silence had bordered on awkward. He shifted in his seat. "So what are you doing here, anyway?"

Jade started, her eyes landing back on him. Her voice was, as per usual, infuriatingly cheerful. "Oh. Um, well, I figured since you're such a big shot in matters of troll romance, you could help me with something."

A horrible thought occurred to him, and he simultaneously wanted to throw up and smack a hand against his forehead. Had he seriously thought she was here for the pleasure of his company? Hahahhahahaa. Right.

"You want me to match you up with someone?" he clarified, his voice a little too high-pitched to pass for casual.

"Not exactly –"

"Because I can't. I've got too much on my plate as it is, and here you are, asking me to take time out of my busy day to help you when you probably don't even _need_ the help –" Nope, nope. That was dangerous territory. Karkat tried a different tack, cutting off an irritated-looking Jade as she opened her mouth to speak. "Why can't you resolve things on your own? I deal in quadrants, I can't lower myself to the one dimensional plane of your human romance. And let's just put it out there that if you've fallen butt first into a puddle of 'my best friend is cute and I don't know what to do,' sorry, but I can't help you. The one time I tried to resolve one like that, I got a face full of grasshopper pie and I am never, ever doing it a–"

Jade broke in, thoroughly exasperated. "Jeez, Karkat, would you calm down? You don't even know what I was going to ask!"

"Sure I do," he said, then paused. "What were you going to ask?"

"I was _going_ to ask if you could match me up with – well – anyone."

Karkat blinked. _Anyone?_

Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought he heard a door slowly creaking open.

"I'm a young lady," Jade went on, "soon to be at the prime of my life. I haven't dated much, but I think maybe now's the time to explore that arena."

He barely heard her. It was hard to hear anything over the sudden jackhammering of hope in his heart. "You just … want a matesprit?"

She pointed at him. "Or a moirail, or a kismesis, or whatever's in your troll vocabulary! I'm open to exploring every kinds of romance. You could say it's for science!"

"For science," he repeated dumbly.

He saw them, together, flipping through romance novels and science papers together on a pile of cushions, her head leaning on his shoulder, quietly passing the time. He imagined her yelling at him to stop being rude and actually _compromise_ once in a while. He pictured himself, coiffed and tuxedoed, preparing a candlelit dinner for Jade in all her 3 A.M. glory. He envisioned them in a heated argument, running with black tension, and finally getting close enough for her to pull him into an almighty snog that left them both breathless.

Karkat's eyes slipped past Jade and fell again on the list of rules above his office door.

 **1\. THOU SHALT REMAIN IMPARTIAL, WITH NO PERSONAL STAKE IN THE AFFAIR OF ANOTHER.**

The tentatively opened door in his mind slammed shut in a whirl of dust.

Jade was not looking for someone like him. She'd come to this office for the help of an independent third party, as per the ad in the café downstairs, and where before he hadn't had a chance, now he _really_ had no right to try and set her up with himself.

If he helped her find someone else, it might feel like someone pounding a mullet into his blood-pusher - but he'd be able to spend some time with her, talk to her, at least for a little while. Without the presence of their friends and … mutual acquaintances.

Maybe it was this masochistic impulse that did the trick. But apart from that, it was the undeniable truth that she deserved better than him. She deserved all the happiness in the world.

And if his role was to help her find that happiness, so be it.

"Sure, that's fine," he heard himself say distantly.

"Great!" she chirped, jumping to her feet. At her gesture, he slowly pulled back from the desk and stood, and allowed her to steer him by the shoulders to the shipping chart.

"All right, matchmaker," she said, stepping away. "Make me a match!"

Karkat made no move to write her name in. He just stood there, pen in hand, staring rather hopelessly at the chart in front of him.

Jade looked at him, then, with a puzzled frown, at the chart. Her gaze roved over it for a second before she saw the problem.

"Wait. Why am I not on here?"

 _Because I didn't want to imagine you with anyone else._

"I, uh …" He swallowed against his dry throat. "Couldn't fit you in."

It should have been a dead giveaway.

"Nepeta's going to put you out of business," Jade remarked. "You should see her shipping wall, it has literally every possible pairing you can think of. That girl is prepared for anything." She walked back around the desk to perch on the client's chair. "Okay, then, let's brainstorm! Who do you think I'd be most compatible with?"

He swallowed, lowering his eyes to an empty spot on his desk. Would she suspect him of having ulterior motives if he were to say, hypothetically, _well, there's this guy I know, kind of a loudmouth and pricklier than a cactus, but you see through his bullshit every time and – trust me, he's not as bad as he seems. Because there's one thing that can make up for all his shortcomings and that's the fact that he's so in love with you that Lord English could be in the same room and he wouldn't even notice. That's got to count for something, right?_

"Karkat?"

He started. "What?"

"Any ideas?"

 _Just one._

"What about …" He wracked his brain for a safe choice, someone he knew she wouldn't even want to consider. It was harder than he'd have liked; Jade was fond of a lot of people whom he, personally, found insufferable. "Tavros?"

She winced. "Nah."

 _Thank the stars._ "Why not? He's not a bad guy, if you don't mind a Pupa Pan wannabe with a side of shrinking violet."

"It's not that, it's just – he talks so much about his self-esteem that it's so painfully obvious he doesn't have any!" Jade fidgeted in her chair, looking apologetic even though Tavros wasn't there to hear her speak ill of him. "I don't want to have to constantly prop up someone's ego. Someone a little more confident, maybe?"

Karkat had a vision of a bunch of kindergarten kids raising their hands and yelling _me me me!_ with his own cacophonous voice.

"Okay, fine. What about John?"

Jade looked appalled. "He's my brother! Sort of."

Karkat rolled his eyes. "Right, the bizarre –"

"– human anathema of incest. You forgot," she finished. "Really, though, why?"

"He's possibly the only person with whom I can imagine you stepping into a quadrant without feeling compelled to put my face into a boiling kettle."

Jade snickered.

"What?" he said, affronted.

"Nothing. Just. What do you even care? No one's setting _you_ up with John."

"But as your matchmaker, I have veto power, and I can't in good conscience allow one of my clients to fall into the arms of a complete noodle."

She shrugged, unconvinced. "Fine, if you say so. What about Dave?"

"Not that insufferable prick!"

Too late, he realized that his voice had shot through two octaves, the objection much too vehement for the whole 'impartial third party' thing. But Jade only raised an eyebrow.

"Roxy, maybe? Or Jane?"

He huffed. "You have _nothing_ in common –"

"Kanaya, then. We do share an aspect, after all!"

Karkat opened his mouth to protest, but hesitated. She had a point there. "She's not really your type," he hedged, even as the self-loathing part of his brain started tallying up a mental list of all the ways Jade and Kanaya would be nauseatingly well-matched –

Jade frowned at him, clearly annoyed at his speedy rejections of every name she threw at him. "Oh, and you know what my type is?" When he balked, she leaned back in the chair, crossing her arms. "Go on, then, you must have someone specific in mind, seeing as everyone else automatically fails your bogus test!"

Karkat was saved from having to respond by the door to his office bursting open.

A beefy, disheveled, very sweaty troll was hunched over in the doorway, lanky strands of hair falling into his face as he gasped for breath. His eyes were concealed behind dark shades run through with fissures.

He'd evidently run to the office. Where he clutched the door frame for support, he left imprints of his fingers in the wood.

"Vantas," he wheezed, as Jade swivelled in her seat to get a look at the intruder. "I require … your assistance."

Karkat scowled. "Well, gee, allow me to respectfully drop everything and abandon my client in order to help a blueblood snob such as yourself. It would be my delight and pleasure."

"Excellent," the other said, and promptly ran off again.

Jade turned back around, looking amused. "Wow. Does Equius have love problems, too?"

"Well, he _would,"_ Karkat said irritably. "The only people he thinks are good enough for him aren't remotely interested. He and Eridan should get together, actually, they have a lot in common. Anyway, what were you saying?"

She didn't miss a beat. "I was saying" - this with a pointed look he couldn't decipher - "that if you're such a rom-savvy guy, maybe you should tell _me_ who you think might be interested in me."

Equius reappeared in the doorway.

 _"What?"_ Karkat snapped at him.

"I thought you would follow me," said Equius, in his usual slow, careful tone.

"Because I have nothing better to do?"

"The situation would be better explained elsewhere."

"In case you haven't noticed," Karkat said testily, "Jade and I are in the middle of something."

Equius appeared startled at seeing Jade in the client's chair. "Miss Harley. I apologize. Are you busy?"

"We kind of are," she agreed good-naturedly. "But you can go ahead and tell Karkat what the problem is. Mine isn't that urgent."

He frowned. "Do you plan on staying to listen?"

"If you don't mind! I'm kind of curious about how these things go down. I promise I won't judge." She cast a sideways smile at Karkat, and damn if it didn't turn his intestines to jelly. "That's probably more than this dork can say for himself, anyway."

Karkat opened his mouth to yell at someone that his business with Jade was, in fact, a very urgent matter, and that he didn't give a damn about the horsecreep's problems, and that having a witness to a private consultation was against his code of honour in at least three different ways –

But then, he'd gotten himself into a bit of an awkward spot. There was no way he could answer Jade's far too pointed question without it ending in horrific embarrassment for himself, and if he tried to dodge it, he couldn't bet that she'd forget to wring an answer out of him.

Maybe he had better take this case.

"Fine," he grouched, sitting down behind the desk. "What seems to be the problem?"

"Well, you see," Equius began, shutting the door behind him, "it's a rather delicate situation … a matter of propriety, you understand …"

Jade propped her chin in her hands.

"That hierarchy of nature, the hemospectrum, dictates each of our lives – as well it should – and all my life I have staunchly done my best to venerate those above me and revile those far beneath me."

Karkat took no pains to hide his sigh of disgust.

Equius looked supremely uncomfortable. Standing before the two of them, his arms hanging awkwardly at his sides, he began to sweat profusely again.

"I'm afraid my position has been … compromised."

"Spit it out," said Karkat.

Flushing indigo, Equius threw back his shoulders and declared, in the manner of someone confessing a dark and shameful secret, "I cannot stop thinking about her. The rustblood." He swallowed. What he said next, he uttered with the utmost reverence: "Aradia Megido."

There was a brief silence as the three of them took this in.

Jade blinked and said, "Well, that's not so bad, is it?" at precisely the same moment that Karkat started to guffaw.

"I have tried to alleviate the situation," Equius went on, oblivious to Karkat's increasingly obnoxious laughter. "I built the most magnificent robot I am capable of building, in her image, and in sublime detail and attention to form. It took me four tries to get the nose right. And though I was tempted to rein in her waist … in the interest of staying true to the model, I did not. It is as lifelike as possible. It should have satiated my every desire."

"Oh, my God," Karkat choked out, "did you kiss this robot, too? Did you roleplay through the filthiest scenarios your narrow mind can envision? I bet –"

"Karkat, don't be insensitive!" Jade scolded, turning in her seat to glare at him. "This is obviously important to him! Just because you don't know what it's like to have an unrequited crush on someone doesn't mean you can treat others so callously. What happened to being an impartial professional or whatever it is you call yourself?"

That shut him up.

Jade turned back to Equius and said encouragingly, "Go on, we're listening."

He gave a forlorn sigh. "The trouble is that, though my Aradiabot is extremely lifelike, it is lifeless. It has no will of its own and is entirely subject to my wishes. And though at first I thought that would correct the only imperfection in an otherwise flawless creature, I find I am not satisfied." He spread his hands, as if pleading with Karkat to understand. "My passions cannot be quenched by steel and circuitry! Alas, I cannot replicate the light in her eyes, nor her morbid sense of humour, nor her delight in adventure and archaeological mysteries –"

"Well, no shit," Karkat burst out impatiently. "Finally figured out that robots don't kiss back, have you?"

"Karkat, shut up and let him finish."

"Can you help me?" said Equius. "I heard you deal with this sort of thing. Rid me of these thoughts. Please, free me from her thrall."

Karkat stared. How ironic, how positively _rich_ that a highblood who made such a big deal out of the hemospectrum was in the clutches of infatuation with a troll who was, by all rights, the lowest of the low.

Served him right, the snob.

"You've really got it bad," Jade said sympathetically. "Are you so sure you want to stop thinking about her? I mean, I don't blame you. Aradia is _gorgeous,_ and a super interesting person. Maybe you should ask her out! What is there to lose?"

"My dignity," Equius answered in monotone, ticking the items off on his fingers like he'd run through this mental list a dozen times before. "My reputation. Respect for the hierarchy. All sense of propriety and decorum. I am a blueblood, whereas she –"

"Is three strikes out of your league," Karkat interrupted, shoving back from the desk and getting to his feet. "Sorry, but I can do without your elitist patronage."

Equius looked perturbed. "Are you refusing me?"

"Does that surprise you? Yeah, I am." Karkat waved a hand at the door. "So long, Romeo."

Equius wilted, but before he could turn to leave, Jade sprang up from her chair. "Oh, for all the stars – stay there, don't go anywhere!"

And she grabbed Karkat by the sleeve and dragged him bodily into the far corner of the office.

He put up no resistance but managed to gripe as his head thunked against the wall. "Ow, fuck, Harley, what are you doing –"

"I need to have a word with you," Jade hissed, turning her back on Equius so he wouldn't catch wind of what she was saying. "Why are you so disparaging of everyone who comes to you for advice? You call yourself a matchmaker, turning up your nose at anyone who put themselves out there thinking you might take pity on them! I think you should get off your high horse and help this poor boy."

Karkat made an outraged sound in the back of his throat. "He's an elitist and a creep!"

"And he's obviously in love!"

"He doesn't deserve my help."

Jade looked indignant. "Who are you to decide who deserves true love and who doesn't! How many successful couples have you actually set up, anyway?"

Karkat opened his mouth to give a furious retort, but the words froze when he realized that the tally was, actually, at a grand total of zero.

He crossed his arms. "Maybe I have standards."

Jade scoffed. "Maybe you're a hypocrite."

"Look, I –" He groaned. "It would be different if he was interested in someone else, but Aradia's become elusive since she started working as the Maid of Time. It's impossible to get ahold of her."

"Isn't love supposed to be challenging?"

"She'll never have him anyway!"

"You can't know that until you try. Besides …" Jade cast a glance over her shoulder at Equius, lowering her voice to a murmur. "Think about what this would mean for his fixation with the hemospectrum! He'll have to change his entire worldview if they start dating. Maybe that'll teach him how meaningless the hierarchy actually is."

"And if she rejects him?" he asked, unwilling to concede the point.

She shrugged.

"He'll learn his lesson then, too, won't he?"

Karkat's shoulders slumped. He hated it when other people were reasonable; it just made him look like an idiot if he continued to resist logic. Not that that stopped him most of the time – but this was Jade.

He kind of wanted to listen to her.

"Fine," he muttered again.

Her grin was sudden and brilliant. Karkat swallowed.

"Great!" she said. "See, you don't have to be so difficult all the time." She turned around and gave Equius a thumbs-up. "He'll take your case."

Equius' expression didn't appear to change on account of the shades, but his flat voice sounded marginally more hopeful. "He will?"

"Yes, he will." Jade elbowed Karkat gently. "You take it from here."

"Right. Well, since I guess I don't have a choice" – this with a halfhearted glare at Jade, who was looking absurdly cheerful – "come back here tomorrow at four o'clock, and we can assess your situation, discuss strategy, whatever." He swung an arm at the door. "Just … get out so I can think about the utterly hopeless job I've given myself."

Equius nodded. "Thank you." With nothing further to say, he gave Jade a shallow bow and left the room.

"Huh," said Karkat.

"What?"

"I forgot how disturbingly polite he could be."

Jade sighed meaningfully.

He scowled. _"What?"_

"I'm gonna pick my battles," she mumbled, dropping back into the client's chair. "So. About my proposition."

His heart sank. "Yeah?"

"Who do you think we should start with?"

"I don't know. Anyone, you can pick. I don't care." His anger was rising back in full swing. The thought of acting as matchmaker on Jade's behalf made him feel sick at heart; and yet, how could he refuse? If anyone deserved to find love, to be happy, it was her.

"I'll help you," he said, "on one condition. You let me give you proper lessons on our quadrants. If you have to woo a troll in our circle, I can't have you embarrassing yourself. That would reflect badly on _me._ So, Monday at two in my office. We'll start then. Sound good?"

Jade nodded. "Sounds good, Karkat. Thanks." She sprung to her feet. "Until Monday, then! Don't forget!"

And with a cheery wave, she, too, left by the door, letting it swing gently shut.

Karkat just stood there for a moment, his office silent but for the noise of the café from below, as the full implication of what he'd agreed to dawned on him.

 _Well,_ he thought dismally, _I'm screwed._

Then he picked up the phone to call a seadweller about a rescheduled appointment.


End file.
